


A Painting Of A Bird Nesting On A Peach Tree Branch

by TheSwingbyJeanHonoreFragonard



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Historical, Angst, Arranged Marriage, Historical Fantasy, M/M, Melodrama, Romance, Sexual Content, Strangers to Lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:34:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27682280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSwingbyJeanHonoreFragonard/pseuds/TheSwingbyJeanHonoreFragonard
Summary: Seungmin is to be married to an alpha who is impossible to love.
Relationships: Kim Seungmin/Lee Minho | Lee Know
Comments: 69
Kudos: 248





	1. To Avoid Smearing The Ink

Jeongin dolls Seungmin up for the occasion. 

Red on the lips is ‘so last season’ so Jeongin presses a warm orange-pink hue on Seungmin’s mouth. Just a light layer to add color. Nothing distracting. Then Jeongin dabs a darker autumn leaf color over Seungmin’s eyelids and cheeks. Deep auburn polish is applied to Seungmin’s fingernails but not on the ring finger. Not on the thumb. An omega doesn’t earn that privilege until after they are mated. 

To be so tall, to be so long-limbed and gangly and clumsy under any other circumstances, Jeongin moves with fluidity and grace when it comes to applying makeup. He washes Seungmin’s hair in warm water scented with orange peel and juniper berries and, when it is dried but not dry, Jeongin uses his finest combs to brush the tangles free and then styles Seungmin’s hair up and away from his forehead. Jeongin then clips the dark brown locks down with accessories made of gold and dotted with rubies.

“I do not see why you must go through such effort,” Seungmin sighs as the first hour melts into the second and Jeongin claims he is still not done.

“You are a gift,” Jeongin replies sternly, “so we must wrap you like one.” Then he goes back to the task of carefully dotting Seungmin’s bare skin, his pressure points, with floral perfume and guiding the young master into the many layers of his clothing.

“Must it be so excessive,” Seungmin asks. “Must so much money be spent on an outfit I will wear once? Especially when my family is but one month away from the poorhouse?”

“As long as you look rich, you  _ are _ rich. It is all about appearances.” Jeongin helps Seungmin into yet another layer of nearly-sheer fabric and then cinches it tight about his waist with a brightly-colored sash. 

The hanbok is Jeongin’s latest creation, results of a week of delicate sewing. The expensive silk wraps Seungmin from throat to toe in luxury. The fabric is dyed in the colors of autumn although it is the season of winter that grips the capital in icy fingers. The embroidery is magnificent with hints of gold woven into the bold, powerful orange and pearlescent aqua. Seungmin is no prince but, as he gazes at himself in his bronze mirror, he cannot help but feel as if he looks like a prince. He just hates that it took the last of the money in the family coffers to make him look this beautiful. So he says the one thing that comes to mind. “As good as I look, you may as well slit my throat and bury me in this outfit.”

It is not a joke but Jeongin snickers as if it is one. “Oh, hush. Every omega dreams of this day.”

“Every omega except me.”

“The Kims have a reputation to uphold,” Jeongin states firmly. He steps back to admire his handiwork. “You will not leave this house wearing anything less than the best. Especially on a day like today.” And to double down on this point, the hanbok he wears is dull in color and plain in style, all so that Seungmin will look all the prettier standing next to him.

“You mean the day I am executed?”

“The day your handsomeness turns everyone’s heads toward you.” But perhaps Jeongin’s confidence is misplaced. 

When the two of them gather their few belongings and leave the main house, the courtyard is empty save for the few servants the Kim family still have left in their employ. When they pass through the estate’s main gate and move on to the old stone street, there is no waiting, gawking, applauding crowd of appreciative onlookers. No swarm of young, curious children Jeongin must swat back. There are no alpha admirers tossing bouquets of flowers and satchels of coins at Seungmin, vying for his undivided attention. For a hint of his love and for a flash of the skin at his wrist or ankles. There are no envelopes from secret and not-so-secret admirers stuffed with poems describing sugary sweetness or spicy explicitness being pressed against his palm. 

The quiet claws at Seungmin’s skin. Makes him ache. 

Makes him hate that he is to be married by day’s end.

Jeongin, at least, is quite pleased with the lack of a crowd. He heaves a sigh of relief, his breath leaving his mouth in a fog in the early morning chill, and says, “Now we may travel with no headache. For once.” Then he snaps his fingers, signaling the betas that wait on them next to the gate. He takes one look at his charge and huffs, “smile.”

Seungmin keeps his frown on his face. There is no alpha to impress or to be pretty in front of. He scowls and mumbles under his breath, even as the betas--men who’ve served the family for years--guide him up to the palanquin and draw back the thick curtains so that he may sit inside. They wait until he is settled, then the betas lift the palanquin onto their shoulders with trained coordination and smoothness. Jeongin is aided onto the back of a magnificent raven-black steed while a group of hired guides on horseback lead the way down the dusty dirt streets. Seungmin folds his hands into the sleeves of his hanbok to fight off the wintry chill. 

The quietness on the street unnerves him. Even a week ago, there would have been noise and fanfare, but now that Seungmin is no longer an eligible bachelor, now that he’s been forced to publicly accept an alpha’s claim on him, he is no longer of any interest to the general public. That’s just how these procedures go. Seungmin is a beautiful little toy to be swooned over and wooed until the day he’s kept locked away in an alpha’s dollhouse. The merchandise has been sold off. There’s no longer a reason to herd around the store. So to speak.

As Seungmin rides the palanquin across the city, he sits on his velvet cushions and loathes that he is no longer the center of everyone’s attention. 

An hour passes. Then two. Nearly three. Broken apart by intermittent breaks so that the betas may rest and drink water and tend to the horses. Their traveling party has left the city entirely by now, Seungmin figures as he peers through the gap in the curtains at the rural houses and snow-covered hills and trees that they pass. The ride is gentle but wickedly slow and quiet and, without Jeongin nearby to chat with, the journey is nerve-gratingly  _ lonely _ .

It’s been a rough year for the city, Seungmin recalls. A rough year for the entire kingdom. Their previous king fell ill. His only alpha son ran away from his duties, forcing one of the king’s bastard beta sons to wear the crown. War had come dangerously close to the kingdom’s borders as their northern neighbors attempted to take advantage of the confusion following the succession ceremony. War is never pretty. And such proximity to conflict emptied the city considerably as people fled. As alphas were conscripted to join the army. As a result, there weren’t nearly enough hands to aid with the harvest so everyone’s food stores had been uncomfortably scarce this winter. 

The Kims have not escaped such peril. 

At first, Seungmin’s mother was magnanimous and offered food, medicine, grain and money to the starving townspeople that remained. She gave to anyone who asked for it, not quite putting weight to the fact that such resources were finite. But the winter got colder and colder and the Kim family treasury got emptier and emptier. Seungmin’s mother had to dismiss nearly all of their staff and shut their doors to outsiders and turn away any and all beggars, if only because they simply had nothing left to offer. They hardly had enough left for themselves. And, wracked with guilt, at her wit’s end, Seungmin’s mother sold Seungmin’s hand in marriage to the highest bidder. 

_ For the benefit of us both _ , she’d said when she had told him her decision.

It’s nearly sundown by the time they’ve reached their destination. It’s the farthest from the city that Seungmin has ever been and he peers outside to see snow-capped mountains turn red-violet in the twilit distance.

The address the palanquin stops in front of is for a large but shabby-looking home that has Seungmin tilting his nose up in shock and mild disgust. It’s a sprawling affair with many rooms and a wide courtyard and a tall stone fence around the perimeter. Closer to the border with the hostile neighboring kingdom, this entire region has probably stood nearly-abandoned since the start of the war. Larger than the Kim family estate by nearly three times yet nowhere near as impressive. Perhaps the place was grand at some point, perhaps even as recently as last year’s spring, but now the house is an overgrown mess of choking weeds and splintering wood and debris that floated in on the wind. All the grandeur of a place of this size hides beneath a layer of dead leaves, fallen tree branches, cobwebs and a fresh coat of snow.

The betas help Seungmin down off of the palanquin but Seungmin breaks away from their hands to stomp up towards Jeongin. “What is the meaning of this?”

Jeongin, to his credit, looks just as confused. “I apologize, my lord, perhaps there has been some mix-up with the location--”

“The next groom has arrived,” states a voice.

The two omegas turn to stare in the direction of the noise. The wooden gate out front is now partially opened and the pale, wizened face of an old woman stares at them from the gloomy shadows.

Such a sight almost works a scream from Seungmin’s mouth before the woman pulls the door farther open and a sliver of waning sunlight falls across her face.

“I apologize that there is no grand party to receive you.” She looks first at Seungmin and then at Jeongin. She makes her assumption and snaps her eyes back to Seungmin. “Step forward, groom. We will entertain you in one of the side parlors.” She is a beta, Seungmin can tell by the scent that clings to her, or the lack thereof, but she’s no mere servant. The woman holds her back straight and her head high and is already turning away as if she is that used to being obeyed.

Seungmin is so stunned, so confused by her audacity, that he follows the woman through the door, not even waiting for Jeongin to lead him.

“Wait, my lord,” Jeongin whispers. He rushes forward to walk at Seungmin’s side who, in turn, rushes to keep up with the old woman’s feisty gait.

Their noise and movement must startle the animals. A murder of crows takes flight from the boughs of the overhead trees and their cacophony only reminds Seungmin of how silent the air is out here. As if they’ve crossed the threshold into a dream. Or into a nightmare.

_ Gods. It’s such a ghastly sight _ , Seungmin thinks as he turns his head to stare at every crumbling stair and barren fountain and sagging roof. 

The woman clicks her tongue to regain Seungmin’s attention and leads him towards a side door to a building several paces left of the main house.

The old woman’s clothing isn’t new. Not by any means. But Seungmin is familiar enough with patterns and materials and embroidery and the cost of dyes to recognize that the clothing is rich and well-made, if a little worn and faded around the hems. He can’t decide why this dichotomy unsettles him. Has the woman gone mad and somehow thinks she’s the master of a grand estate? Maybe he says such a thought aloud because she turns to face him with sharply narrowed eyes. “Call me Madam Seo,” she insists. Then she slides open the door and steps back to allow them through. “Hot tea awaits you. Sit and relax. I will bring you to your husband in a moment.” She turns and steps away with surprising nimbleness to have so much gray in her hair.

It is Jeongin’s touch on Seungmin’s wrist that gets him to snap out of his thoughts and then walk into the room out of the cold.

“How rude,” Jeongin whispers after peering over his shoulder to ensure the woman is out of earshot. “Must we close the door behind ourselves and find our own way to the table? How barbaric.” But he slides the door shut to block out the wind regardless.

Fortunately, there is no chance to lose their way. The room is small, cluttered, and it is obvious where they must sit.

Seungmin expects the richness of such a large home to at least have made it indoors, but the interior is just as gray and drab as the exterior. A mirror stands covered with a sheet in one corner. A small wooden shelf is stacked tight with texts but the books are worn with faded ink and the pages are half-destroyed by insects. The windows are pulled closed but the flimsy oil-paper screens do not completely stop the chilling whisper of the wind. Only a portion of the room’s wooden floor has been swept, as if the arrival of company was a barely-remembered occasion and someone was set to the task mere minutes before their arrival. The corners of the small room and most of its furniture are covered in a noticeable layer of dust.

The low table in front of them, at least, has been wiped down and the surface shines enough for Seungmin to see a fair bit of his own reflection. He feels and looks terribly out of place in his bright, handsome finery. “I am terrified to sit down. Will a plume of dust choke me if I do?” But when he shifts his weight to kneel on the pillow, there is no dust, but the pillow is flat and cold, uncomfortably stiff. Perhaps even more uncomfortable than the floor. On the table between them is a finely-made lacquered wood tray and on the tray are two chipped teacups. Seungmin places his hand on the belly of the porcelain teapot and does not even recoil. “Hot tea, my ass,” he huffs, not even caring about the crass language that has slipped off his tongue. Even if it had only been sitting on this table a handful of minutes, the winter air has stolen the majority of the heat from the beverage. Seungmin does not even bother to pour himself a cup. He just watches as Jeongin seats himself on the opposite side of the table. “Is this some joke,” Seungmin asks. “Am I being made a fool of? Has my family tossed me away for some minor slight?” He doesn’t even wait for Jeongin’s answer. He raises his voice. “Am I being married off to some exiled, disgraced, penniless alpha?” 

“Keep your voice down,” Jeongin hisses. He slides back his sleeves, grips the teapot and pours himself a polite half-full cup. He raises it to his nose. Sniffs. Sips. He sets the cup back down.

The tea smells fragrant, at least, but Seungmin decides in that moment that he will not eat or drink or sleep in this dusty tomb of a house. “Answer my question,” Seungmin snaps. “Am I being punished? Have I offended my mother in some way? Why would she send me  _ here _ , of all places?” 

“Hush,” Jeongin chides.

But Seungmin can’t do that. This bothers him down to his very soul and he must speak of it! “Does this place have no staff? Does the family have no money? Are they no better off than we are?”

“They must have wealth and connections or your parents would not have agreed to such an offer.”

That does not sit well with Seungmin. Shouldn’t his mother have done the bare minimum of research before signing her son away? But perhaps he’s lived behind the walls of his family home for too long to know much better. Perhaps the world outside is far more bleak than he’s ever imagined, than he’s ever been told, and  _ this _ is the best his mother can do for him in these times.

It’s a sad thought. 

He would much rather grow past his marriageable years and live as an untouchable, unwanted, unmated omega than be married to someone… _ poor _ .

Seungmin shivers. Not just from disgust but from the chill. The winter has its own coldness but the house itself seems to be swamped in cold and gloom. There seem to be no fires to heat the rooms. The Madam has not even lit a lantern for them so the two omegas sit in the side parlor in near-darkness as the sun sets outdoors. “Am I to be killed here?” Seungmin moans. And he is being entirely serious. “Has my mother forfeited my life in return for some grand sum? Am I destined to become another ghost that haunts these grounds?”

Jeongin gets on him again, “My lord.”

“Look at this place!” Seungmin swings his hand around to indicate the cluttered disarray the room is in. It is more like some forgotten storage room than a place to ‘entertain guests.’ “I will be killed here. No one will think to look for me.”

Jeongin puts a little bit of authority in his tone when he says, “I beg you to lower your voice lest your rudeness be overheard.”

But Seungmin almost wants to be overheard. He  _ wants _ to be seen as disrespectful and burly. Uncouth. Loud. Unfit for a union. 

He wants this wedding called off. 

Sure, it will be nigh-impossible to find another alpha who would even want him now that he’s been tainted even by the work of  _ marriage preparations _ , but at least that will be a loneliness he chooses. Not one he is forced to endure by having a wedding in a hovel like this.

No, Seungmin belatedly remembers. He isn’t even going to have a wedding. He will be handed his ring--if he even gets a ring!--and then he will simply be married. 

His mother couldn’t even afford a ceremony.

Jeongin had told him that every omega dreams of a day like this. Of being dolled up and  _ shown off _ in front of their strong, responsible alpha. Seungmin glances up at the rickety roof above their heads, at the spider webs in the rafters, at the withered and brown plant in the corner that surely represents what he will become if he stays here. If he lives here. “If only I’d presented as an alpha,” Seungmin does not mean to say it aloud. In fact, he does not realize the words have even slipped from his mouth.

Jeongin makes a pained expression but chooses not to verbally protest.

Seungmin continues to lament his fate. If only his mother had accepted any of the other numerous alphas who had proposed! That Yongbok fellow had been a little young and a little short and thin for an alpha, but he was handsome and kind and wrote lovely poetry. Youngjae had been a bit more mature and a bit more solidly built. Though he may have been quite slow, mentally, his family was well-off and the servants had held their hands in front of their mouths as they giggled with Seungmin over the rumors about the divine size of his knot. Sungjin had been even older than that, nearly of unmarriageable age himself, but he gave Seungmin what most other alphas hardly offered. He gave  _ meaningful conversation _ .

But for some reason or another, Seungmin’s mother always refused their proposals. Seungmin is certain he would have taken any other husband over this one. He even would have accepted that beta named Chan’s proposal, as fruitless as their union would have been. 

Seungmin props his chin on his hand and practically whimpers, “Am I being married off to some old, sickly man on his deathbed?”

Jeongin frowns but he does not encourage Seungmin’s imagination. Jeongin reaches for his teacup and takes another gulp. It must be unsatisfactory, because he sits the cup at the center of the table, out of comfortable reach, as if he does not intend to lift it again.

“I suppose there is a chance the Madam is not of sound mind,” says Seungmin, “and she’s stayed in this empty, abandoned house for so long that she truly does believe she serves an alpha here. Perhaps she believes that so strongly that she was able to con my mother out of her only, wretched son. Our family is over now, you do realize. After this marriage, I won’t even be considered a Kim any more. The bloodline dies tonight unless my parents have an entirely unprecedented pregnancy. What if that old hag knows such a thing and preyed on my mother’s desperation?” And before Jeongin can admonish him for speaking so ill of the woman, Seungmin cries out, “I am going to miss you!” Seungmin’s whole chest shakes as emotion hits him. As it barrels over him and wrenches a tear from his eye. “I can’t even keep you here with me, Jeongin.” The tears fall steadily now. “I am going to be so alone. I am going to  _ rot _ in this old house. I am going to die miserable.”

It’s a tense, fragile moment. Jeongin opens his mouth to speak, snaps it shut, opens it again, closes it. Whatever words sit on the top of his tongue, he is not brave enough or strong enough to speak them. He lowers his gaze to the surface of the table and the silence that settles over them is heavy and uncomfortable and only broken by Seungmin’s barely-held back sniffles.

It is almost a relief when Madam Seo slides back the door and announces that it is time to relocate to the main hall where Seungmin will meet his husband.


	2. Parallel Lines

Seungmin is no stranger to this.

He is no stranger to having decisions made for him. No stranger to being dressed up and shown off like some rare, porcelain doll.

Since he was a child, since that very first day that he presented, fourteen years old and waking up from a vivid dream in a cold sweat in the wee hours of the morning with his bedsheets soaked in slick, he was taught the long list of responsibilities all omegas must take on when they mate. He was taught math and learned how to handle household finances and keep records of servant’s wages. His academic education wasn’t allowed to be too in-depth, but he learned how to read and write. He was taught how to cook and sew and weave and tend to wounds and treat minor illnesses and play a musical instrument. He was taught calligraphy and could translate to and from two other languages. He learned how to earn the respect of servants and maids through cold sternness. He was taught the proper way to dress and how to eat and how to behave and to make conversation (or be subserviently quiet during it.) Seungmin was taught how to properly serve others tea, how to politely arrange guests at a dining table in order of social status, and how to entertain a crowd of nobles without outshining the head of the household.

Then, when he was older and more mature and closer to marriageable age, he was taken from doctor to doctor to doctor, who ran tests to ensure he was at peak physical health and who also instructed him on how to please a woman in bed. Instructed him on how to please a man in bed. How to raise a child and all the guidelines that needed to be followed to look after himself and his well-being when he fulfilled his duty and carried a child. 

All so that he would be the perfect mate.

So that his alpha wouldn’t have to be stressed or worried about anything beneath the roof of the house. So that his alpha would always have a warm bed.

But there must be a curse in the Kim family’s blood. An imbalance between yin and yang. A clashing of energy from two opposing elements. Fire and water, perhaps. Because every time one of the offspring got married, they died.

As if the universe were sending a message.

Seungmin barely remembers his eldest sister. That’s how young he was back then. One rainy night, she’d been traveling with her newly-wedded omega mate to their freshly-built home on the outskirts after their wedding when a sudden mudslide covered the road and buried nearly everyone in the traveling party. 

Seungmin’s eldest brother he only vaguely recalled. A mean-spirited fellow who bullied Seungmin, convincing him he was tarnishing the family’s status and reputation every time he leaked. He got away with it too. He was a tall, charismatic, handsome alpha who got anything and anyone he wanted. In the days leading up to his wedding ceremony, he slept his way through a dozen omegas and even took another alpha or two to bed. But, as if divinely punished, the night after his wedding, the man succumbed to a mysterious ailment and died not quite a month later.

Seungmin’s next oldest sister had been married three years, a record, and had just received news that her wife was finally pregnant with a child when an unfortunate accident on the job robbed her of her life, leaving her wife widowed and her unborn child bereft of the safety and security of the Kim family name.

Seungmin’s next oldest brother was equally cursed. Not much longer after wrapping up his own marriage ceremony, the war had come close enough to the capital that all able-bodied alphas were drafted into the war. Seungmin still remembered how long and loud his mother cried as his brother donned his armor and left the house that oddly beautiful spring day. It was either shameful or merciful that, three weeks later, his corpse was among the first batch of bodies brought back from the border.

When he said he was the last of the Kim name, it was not an embellishment.

🖌

Outdoors, it is strange and wicked and beautiful how cold the evening grows.

Seungmin has lived through many winters but there is something about this one that feels colder. Lonelier. More final. Is it because he’s lived in such an empty, quiet home for so long? Or is it because he’s supposed to be _here_ alone?

“May my death be swift and unexpected,” he whispers.

To which Jeongin curtly responds, “You will not die here, my lord.”

“We shall see.”

Jeongin confidently states, “You will be loved here.”

Which makes Seungmin repeat, “We shall see.”

Seungmin watches his breath leave his mouth in a thin fog every time he exhales. The only noise in the courtyard is the soft crunch of the trio’s leather shoes in the packed, hard snow. The wind is icy and damp and carries with it the clear smell of an approaching snowstorm.

What’s left of the sun’s red-violet light bleeds across the sky to the west, not much brighter than the last glowing embers of a fire and, most certainly, not much warmer. In the darkened corners of the eastern half of the sky, the full moon is fat and full and ringed by a halo of soft gray clouds. The icicles that hang from the eaves of the house sparkle in daylight’s remnants while the purplish shadows of naked trees stretch across their path.

This place, Seungmin decides, is just barely pretty when all of its flaws and imperfections are deliberately hidden by the blackness of night. Like a wound that’s been wrapped in clean cloth but still bleeds through in camellia patterns. Part of him is truly sad that he could not see this place at the height of its majesty. Perhaps it would have meant something then. Perhaps he would have been impressed.

“My lord,” Jeongin’s voice is low, hardly audible even though he walks right next to Seungmin. “If you may hold back a moment. There’s something we must discuss.”

Perhaps it is because Seungmin spent so much of the day confined to the palanquin but even the short walk from the side parlor to the main house exhausts him. If he stops, he fears he will not be able to get moving again, so he compromises by slowing his steps and letting Madam Seo walk farther ahead of them. “What is it,” he asks, keeping his words low.

“Something she… I mean, something Madam Seo said earlier… I paid little attention to it before but now that I have had all of this time to think, that minor detail bugs me.”

“I can’t recall anything odd,” says Seungmin.

“Because you were busy lamenting your fate,” Jeongin chides.

Seungmin knows there is a high chance he’ll lose track of Madam Seo’s shape in the shadowed, overgrown mess of the courtyard, but he takes his eyes off of her bent back to look at Jeongin. “What on earth did she say?” 

“That you are the next groom,” Jeongin responds. He reaches out and gently touches Seungmin’s sleeve. “ _Next_ groom,” he reiterates, “which implies that there was at least one other groom before you.”

And that’s not odd. As soon as someone presented as an alpha, they were allowed to run through as many spouses as they so desired. An omega, on the other hand, only got married once and remained loyal to their mate, even if they off and cheated. Even if they off and died.

“I am sorry that you are not his first,” Jeongin whispers.

And that does little to squash Seungmin’s suspicions. He turns away from Jeongin’s face and all but jogs away from him. “I will be killed here and buried beneath the floorboards.” Fortunately, he spots Madam Seo on the far side of the garden, her gray hair reflecting the silver of the moon like it is the surface of a lake. Not much farther now. He picks up his pace and follows her towards the main house’s front staircase. Over his shoulder, he says, “If I do not respond to any of the letters my dear mother sends in the upcoming months, you now know why. When she’s dressed in mourning clothes and inconsolable with tears, simply ask her if the money was worth it.”

Jeongin just barely manages to keep up with him in the growing dark. “I am sure your mother sent you off to be married because there is nothing good left in the capital.”

Seungmin glances at his servant and ally and, perhaps, his friend. “And that may be true, but there is nothing good left out here, either.” 

It is all Seungmin can say about the topic because Madam Seo waits for them with a stern, impatient expression next to the main house’s front doors. If she overhears their murmuring, she keeps her face blank and composed. A true lady. She says, “I am sure your journey has been long and difficult. You will be most comfortable here.” She bows. Surprisingly formally. Surprisingly deeply. Then she rises to her full height and manages something close to a smile. “We will now prepare dinner. Your husband awaits.” Then she slides open the door and motions for Seungmin to enter.

It is the most important moment. The start of the rest of his life.

It is the moment that will define Seungmin’s truth. It will determine his small but certain happiness.

What awaits him through that door? Some old, wrinkled alpha? Some sick and wizened man? 

Just how cruel is his fate?

Seungmin steps indoors.

Before he can even look around, a plainly-dressed servant approaches the two omegas. He is short but he is not frail and even beneath the sleeves of his clothing, his sculpted musculature is evident. His face is composed of numerous sharp angles but his expression is gentle. Almost timid. He holds a tin bowl full of clean water in one hand and a soft, white cloth in the other. Seungmin holds out his hands and allows the servant to wash them. Their proximity brings a bitter, peppery scent to Seungmin’s nose, almost enough to make him sneeze, but what truly startles him is that such a prestigious household employs an _alpha_ as a servant.

Another, darker thought clicks into place. For a frightening moment, Seungmin’s fears are brought to horrid life. He really is being sold off to some money-less peasant! Some random alpha with no social status, no family, no funds!

Seungmin looks over at Jeongin who, based on the wide-eyed look on his face, has also caught the alpha’s scent.

Madam Seo speaks up. “This is my son, Changbin. After dinner, he will show you around the estate.” She starts walking again. “Do not dally. Your husband awaits.”

This Changbin fellow finishes wiping off Seungmin’s hands and moves on to Jeongin’s, taking extra care to remove the dirt and grime from beneath his nails. As soon as his mother is out of earshot, the dark-haired fellow whispers, “Do not be alarmed. I know my scent is... strong but I, too, carry the burdens of an omega.”

And such an admission comes as a relief. 

“Does your mother not realize,” Seungmin asks, a bit harsher than he intends.

“As a beta she isn’t particularly sensitive to such things.”

Though nobles do not go so far as to castrate their servants like the eunuchs employed at the royal palace, it is still uncivilized for an unmated alpha to be allowed within such close proximity of an omega. Even if they are married.

“Please, do not fall too far behind.” With his task completed, Changbin steps back, leaving Seungmin and Jeongin to walk down the narrow, lantern-lit hall.

It is deathly quiet, even in the main house, and Seungmin wonders how long it has been since this place was filled with the noise of servants and guests.

Seungmin, being Seungmin and no one else, loudly declares, “At least the main house does not look like the inside of a tomb.”

He ignores or does not see Jeongin’s alarmed face or Madam Seo’s irritated one.

It is warmer in here than he expects. A wood fire burns in the sunken pit in the middle of the main room and the sweet-smelling smoke drifts out through the designated hole in the ceiling.

The main house is clean. Cozy. Comfortable. Still cluttered with rich, luxurious items and wonderfully dust free. It is the exact opposite of what Seungmin experienced in the side parlor earlier.

He continues his critique, “With such a small number of staff, perhaps it is necessary to allow the outer wings of the house to become entirely decrepit.”

“My lord,” Jeongin hisses, pinching Seungmin’s side.

Madam Seo clears her throat. “You can have a seat at the table, groom. I will bring wine.” At least this time, she personally guides them across the room, down a small flight of stairs and directly up to the low-sitting table herself.

“Thank you,” Jeongin says, because he is the only one out of the two of them with any politeness left in them. “Sit, Seungmin,” he halfway-commands but keeps his voice at a whisper. “And keep your mouth shut until spoken to.” He wraps an arm around Seungmin’s waist and helps him down onto the embroidered pillow nestled next to the large, round table, then, with a bow, he takes a few respectful steps backwards before kneeling onto the floor. Not at the table but well within Seungmin’s reach. Well within Seungmin’s beck and call.

Madam Seo had made it sound as if dinner preparations hadn’t been completed yet, but as Seungmin discovers, dinner has already been served. The sheer number of dishes spread across the table, ranging from white rice to grilled pork to steamed cabbage to sliced potatoes to fried haddock to pickled radishes, it all fills Seungmin with mild envy. His mother had given most of the Kim family’s food away, leaving them with only a handful of sacks of rice and hardly enough flour to make bread. The absolutely selfless feast in front of him now can only be produced by a well-stocked pantry and, for many seconds, he is so jealous, he is so _angry_ , that he cannot even lift his chopsticks and eat.

Someone important notices.

“Is the food not to your tastes,” asks a silk-smooth voice.

“It’s well within my tastes, thank you,” Seungmin fires back. “It’s simply been a while since I’ve had fresh pork.” He draws back the sleeve of his hanbok, grabs his chopsticks and a clean bowl and begins picking out his meal.

“I knew the Kim family were in dire straits. I did not know they could not afford meat.”

“My mother believes she could erase her tyrannical history and become a saint if she gave all of our food to the poor one month out of the year.”

“How misled she is.”

Then, belatedly, Seungmin realizes that it wasn’t Jeongin or Changbin who had spoken to him. He looks up.

Sitting across the table from him is a simply-dressed young man. So young that he does not look much older than Seungmin. He’s handsome, in a way, with long, dark hair that hangs loosely to his shoulders in a rather unorthodox manner. A beard is just beginning to darken his chin and the scent that rolls off of him is richly sweet like cinnamon. Though the lantern hanging above the table does little to fight away the cool draft seeping into the room, the stranger regards Seungmin with a rather warm, welcoming expression, one that seems almost entirely misplaced given the sharpness of his words. “It takes longer than one month to change the public's opinion of you.”

Seungmin says the first thing that comes to his mind. “Are you going to attempt to convince me that you are an omega too, with a scent like that?”

The stranger lifts their wooden chopsticks to their mouth and chews on a white-fleshed strip of fish. “I am every bit the alpha your instincts tell you I am.”

“That means you aren’t much of one, then,” says Seungmin, not looking up from his food.

“There are other ways to demonstrate my status to you than through pheromones.”

“Attempt to tame me or put me in my place and I’ll remove your testicles through your rectum.”

Madam Seo’s timing is impeccable. She sets down a tray with an off-white ceramic jug of rice wine on it next to the table, well within the alpha’s reach. She stiffly says, “My lord, I am glad you and your new husband are warming up so quickly to each other.”

Seungmin has been trained well. The volcanic eruption of surprise that he feels does not manage to move a single muscle on his face. He simply looks up from his bowl of rice and stares at the alpha sitting across from him again.

They stare each other down. Seungmin with outward hostility. His husband-to-be with an oddly bright smile. Neither of them relent even as the silence stretches terribly, awkwardly thin. It is a battle. But only Seungmin is fighting it.

Madam Seo pours two cups of wine and sits them in front of either man. “Lee Minho, alpha of the Lee House, may I formally introduce you to your new spouse, Kim Seungmin, omega of the Kim House.”

“It is a pleasure,” Lee Minho says, attempting a cordial smile.

But Seungmin, being Seungmin and no one else, replies, “I would have preferred a rotting old man.”


	3. Consummation

Perhaps at one point in the past, when he was younger and more impressionable and more easily lured in by the notions and fancy of true love, Seungmin genuinely _did_ want to be married. He had dreamed of it. Longed for it. Laughed with his omega comrades about their hopes for it. He had gone as far as to plan the whole thing out. The ceremony would be in summer, he had always thought, beneath the bright warmth of the sun and the silky blue of the mid-afternoon sky. He would be there with his friends and his family and his alpha’s family and they would all sit under emerald green trees, the branches decorated with colorful ribbon and paper lanterns and clay beads and folded paper birds. Everyone would carry flowers. Rare ones, he’d decided. From the southern, wetter side of the mountain range. He’d get flowers in numerous colors. White ones, since his mother liked those best. Purple ones, because he had always been told that they suited his complexion. Orange ones, because that was his favorite color even though omegas were supposed to favor blues. And, most importantly, red flowers, because the color was auspicious and encouraged love and fertility. Seungmin would wear a hanbok as bright a green as the grass, as the trees, and the fabric would be lined in stripes of pink and white. The embroidery (he would trust no one but Jeongin with it) would be as silver as the moon and would swirl into shapes like koi fish and cranes. He’d wear a band of silver in his hair. It would be made just for him with flourishing designs of birds and flowers, the accessory set with precious jewels in rosy hues. For all the other times in the future where he would have to lower himself for his alpha, the wedding would be the one place he’d unabashedly shine. He would be so beautiful that no one would look away from him and every unmated alpha in attendance would sweat with envy since they were not the one to pounce on him first! At the head of the ceremony, he’d sit across from his alpha and they would drink from the special tea and exchange bejeweled rings. Seungmin had dreamed of a tall, dark-haired man with stern eyes and a body heavy with muscle and skin smooth like porcelain. Not some wiry, bony-framed scholar but a royal general. A warrior who proudly walked the palace halls and was anointed with coins and jewels for his skill at the front of an army. The two of them would kiss just as the golden sun set behind the hills. 

They’d be wed. And even the newly-crowned beta king would be jealous.

Jeongin had not been kidding when he had said that omegas dreamed of such a day. It was almost burned into their bodies how badly they longed to be mated. To share a bond with their other half. To be swept up in the ceremony and magic of a lifelong love. 

Seungmin fell for it. 

Like a stupid fish who leaped into a fisherman’s basket and begged to be beheaded and eaten. He fell for it.

Perhaps it was due to years of watching his parents in their fairytale, marital bliss. Or, more likely, it was because Seungmin’s older friends had made marriage sound oh-so-wonderful. Leaving him one by one by one to devote their lives to their new homes and to their new mates.

Apparently, life completely changed when one was mated. _And always for the better, Seungmin_. 

Seungmin was smart. He knew of the fleeting butterfly joy of love but he also knew of the practical benefits of marriage. Families exchanged money and power and blood to come together through such unions. Entire households could be lifted out of the gutter of poverty and up onto marble pedestals of riches and fame if an omega was pretty enough to attract the gaze of a particular financially-endowed alpha. 

He knew of one such omega first hand.

Haknyeon, the little minx. He hadn’t held out until his marriage night. That boy had shed the sacred glory of his virginity during some nighttime tryst with the son of a traveling merchant! Whatever had occurred that night had unlocked something within him and Haknyeon risked his own reputation again and again, week after week, slipping out into the dark, starry nights to ride on some waiting alpha’s knot or eat his fill from an alpha’s cunt, whispering to Seungmin all of the sordid details of the encounter whenever he stopped by for tea. His words so much more explicit and detailed than any erotic novel Jeongin could buy for him from secret bookstores. Haknyeon’s family wasn’t as well-known as Seungmin’s. Wasn’t as rich. So perhaps he was able to get away with such pleasure-seeking because he didn’t have half as many eyes on him as Seungmin carried. Regardless, Haknyeon was unfit for the sanctity of marriage, considering how many times he’d sweated into the bedding of some unmated alpha, but the boy was anything if not convincing and persuasive and charming. He still managed to be courted and had a wonderful ceremony, wed to a gorgeous alpha wife from a noble family. Even managing to race ahead of Seungmin in terms of wealth and social status, the bastard.

And Gods, Seungmin thought. That alpha must have done something marvelous on their wedding night for someone as insatiable and untameable as Haknyeon to not even dream of climbing into someone else’s bed after their union.

There was Seungmin’s longest-standing friendship with Jisung. Perhaps that feisty omega is where Seungmin got the sharper edges of his attitude from? But Jisung’s infamously bad temper was quelled after but a few nights spent tangled in the bedsheets with his alpha wife. 

Even demure, quiet, pure-hearted Sunwoo who was too shy to even read his own poetry aloud for the others found great, intimate happiness with an older, mature alpha man. His bedroom stories were full of allure and romance and mystery, though he was never as explicit as Haknyeon or Hyunjin or even Jisung when he recounted his tales to Seungmin on the rare occasions that either of them managed to meet and chat.

And maybe Seungmin wanted that as well. To sit in some dimly-lit parlor, smoking a pipe and sipping foreign-made tea and regaling younger omegas of his exploits with an alpha in bed.

But such rose-tinted dreams lay shattered in Seungmin’s past.

He matured, he thinks. He _grew up_.

Reality was always far more cruel than dreams. 

Marriage wasn’t some rose-petal fantasy. Some flower-filled summer afternoon accompanied by cicadas and fireflies as he’d always longed for in his youth.

It was a taming.

And Seungmin had perhaps lost a bet with the universe in his previous life. He could think of no other reason why he was dealt such a bad hand in this one.

With war on the horizon and famine in the streets, marriage was just cold and dusty and gray. Covered in snow and soot and cobwebs. Marriage was a lifeless, loveless transaction that would keep a roof over his parents’ heads until the weather warmed but at the cost of Seungmin’s life. At the cost of his hope and of his happiness and of all of his remaining dreams.

“I hate him,” Seungmin remarks.

Jeongin tries not to sigh. “Yes, I know, my lord. You’ve told me at least ten times since I filled the tub.”

“I absolutely despise him. With everything that I have.” Seungmin frowned. “His smile. His eyes. His hands. I hate every part of him.”

“You have yet to even become familiar with such parts of him.”

“But it is true. I hate him. He is nothing that I want. He is nothing like I’d dreamed.”

“Sit still,” Jeongin reprimands, “or you will slosh all of this precious soap and water onto the floor.”

“I wanted someone strong. Someone who could protect me. Minho hardly looks strong enough to protect himself yet I am supposed to trust my life to him?” Seungmin won’t even get the luxurious, colorful ceremony he wasted years of his life dreaming of! He has simply been handed from one set of hands to another. Like the warm toy that he is. “He will--”

“Turn your head this way,” Jeongin interrupts.

“He will kill me,” Seungmin keeps on. “Perhaps not with his hands around my throat in my sleep, as I would prefer, but with a long, uneventful life in this dust-filled, spider-infested, cavernous hellhole.” He sighs. “I’d rather sleep on the street and beg strangers for coin.”

Jeongin scoops water out of the tub with his palm and pours it across Seungmin’s scalp. “It is not so bad,” he attempts, combing his fingers through Seungmin’s hair, squeezing the dirt and oil from his locks.

“I am being married to a pauper,” says Seungmin. “I am being married to a man who lives in a house this large but who can only afford to heat two rooms. I am supposed to serve an alpha who can only support two servants. If anything, I am sliding down the social ladder as opposed to climbing up it.”

“There is no way your mother would have simply given you away. He must have ample money stashed away somewhere.”

“And the moment I find it, I am taking it and leaving.”

“My lord, I beg you to at least _whisper_ when you plan such blatant thievery.”

Seungmin squeezes his eyes shut as Jeongin wipes a soft cloth across his face. With each slow, harsh swipe, Jeongin removes more dirt and oily makeup. When Jeongin finishes with his face, Seungmin opens his eyes and tilts his head so that Jeongin will have an easier time getting behind his ears. “If I ever see the boys again, I will be afraid to even tell them of my mate.”

“He is not so terrible. Surely, his true charm remains hidden.”

“He irritates me. I do not wish to spend a minute more with him.”

“You have yet to even spend one day together.”

“And yet I must lay on my back and take his knot up my ass tonight.”

A tense silence.

Dinner had been an equally tense and silent affair. The food, for there to be so much of it, was amateurishly prepared so Seungmin ate more out of necessity than of any true want. Neither groom offered to speak much, only offering the noise of their chopsticks clinking against their bowls until Madam Seo thought it imperative to clear away the dishes. Even now, in the humid washroom, the chill of the winter evening still manages to snatch the warmth from the corners of the room. It is a perfect mirror of the coldness that will always seep into this shallow, flimsy marriage.

It is quite burdensome to feel one’s heart break. It is terribly lonely to watch as one’s dreams shatter.

Seungmin has been robbed of the grand ceremony he’s always dreamed of, the dashing palace guard he’s imagined for himself, the large household he had longed to manage and tend to. 

Not only does a marriage tame, it _imprisons_.

Seungmin says, “Jisung shares dinner tables with palace officials and performs for the Queen Dowager. Haknyeon gossips with court ladies and serves famous scholars foreign tea when they visit his home. Sunwoo chases his dream every single day and gets books of his poems distributed to noblemen and is nearly as famous as his alpha.” He heaves a world-weary sigh. “But a rotting shack in the middle of nowhere is what I get. A nobody alpha with not a scrap of fame to his name. Have you ever heard of him? Lee Minho? Even his family name is unfamiliar to me.” Seungmin attempts to slide down further into the tub and nearly succeeds in doing so but Jeongin grabs him rather inelegantly by the face and pulls his mouth and nostrils back above the surface of the water. “Oh, let me do this one thing, why don’t you!”

“Do you expect me to sit here and watch you drown yourself?” Jeongin sighs wearily and continues to wash Seungmin down. It’s a pity, really, to wipe off all of the hard work he spent hours doing just that morning, but this is the real show, Jeongin reminds himself. The true test of his skill. Free of the ceremonial makeup, Seungmin must appear natural and sweet and appealing for the first night in his alpha’s bed. 

Jeongin doesn’t have all of his tools and cosmetics at the ready, but he will make do with what he has. No one will do a better job. There is no better blank canvas than Seungmin’s handsome face.

“He best be glad he let you stay with me until the morning,” growls Seungmin. “For if I had to be bathed by Changbin tonight, no one under this roof will know happiness for the rest of their days.”

“Though it is not quite proper for me to stay here when I am still employed by your mother, perhaps it is a good thing I may do so. No one else here gets your humor.”

“It has come to my attention that you are under the impression that I have not been serious this entire night.”

Jeongin sighs. It is tiring work tending to Seungmin’s fussy needs but if he has survived in this position for this long, then surely tending to anyone else will be too easy to be called work.

“Do not pull so hard,” Seungmin whines when Jeongin’s fingers encounter a knot in his hair.

“I will tend to my matters. You will keep tending to yours.”

“I am tending,” Seungmin snaps. He stretches his legs wider and groans like a petulant, picky child.

Jeongin dips his cloth back into the tub. The water is hot. Almost too hot to sit in comfortably but it is something an omega must sit through and deal with on nights such as these. A high temperature is the only way to make Seungmin’s skin soft and pink like alphas prefer. The nearly-scalding water is the only way to ensure that Seungmin is clean and stench-less in the one place an alpha cares for most. 

When the silence stretches on too long, Seungmin finds something new to complain about. “I will work a cramp into my wrist if I keep this up for much longer.”

“It is for your own good,” Jeongin says. “Or you will bleed across the sheets on your wedding night. Have you not read the books?”

“I have. I have also stared long and hard at the illustrations some artist was not paid nearly enough to ink across the pages. Even Haknyeon would blush at the sight of such masterpieces.”

Jeongin’s tone changes. His whole mood shifts. “I am sorry, Seungmin. Truly.” He wipes the cloth across Seungmin’s neck. They must get him out of the water soon or he will begin to wrinkle, undoing the very thing they’ve sat him in the tub to do. “I know that you have dreamed of this day since we were both young and even I am saddened by the fact that what has happened tonight does not come close.”

“The one thing that I have been taught that an omega must get used to once they are mated,” Seungmin mumbles, “is disappointment.”

🖌

Seungmin waits in the sparsely-decorated bedroom alone.

The windows are shut tight but silver moonlight still manages to steal its way inside through the yellow and tarnished oil-paper screens. The furniture is well-built and sturdy but plain in design. Even the tri-fold screen that divides the room is criminally plain, its function obvious. Every room Seungmin enters confirms his deep fears: that there is an abundance of empty space in this lonely, massive mansion.

Whatever money this family had is long gone.

It dawns on Seungmin then, that there is a chance they sold all of the furniture and artwork just to afford to buy his hand in marriage.

“But what good would that do them,” Seungmin mumbles. “If both families are poor afterwards, what benefit does a marriage bring us?”

The mystery grows ever larger and more tangled but Seungmin puts it out of his mind. The Kim family curse is at play here, even now. While his friends back home explore luxury and beauty, Seungmin is doomed to die.

He’d nearly forgotten.

Slowly, the omega takes in the rest of the room. Changbin must have been the one to bring all of these candles here and spent precious minutes lighting them all. His scent lingers even beneath the wet smoke of the flames. 

Unlike that morning, where Seungmin was wrapped in the finest silks and jewels, he is truly wrapped up like a gift tonight. Madam Seo dressed him in a plain layer of unfitted white cotton that is meant to be torn away. 

Seungmin waits patiently. Though he does it with all of his might. He kneels on the surprisingly soft sheets of the bedding. His hands sit on his thighs. His mind carries too much lucidity for this kind of slow, numb torture, he thinks. If Minho had not been so strict, Seungmin would have emptied the jug of rice wine by himself. Perhaps then he could make it through this first night and learn the tricks needed to survive the rest.

Just when Seungmin has reached his wit’s end, just when he has given up and gets ready to crawl into bed, the creaky wooden door slides open and Minho appears.

“Apologies, my sweet,” the alpha says.

Seungmin rolls his eyes and bites his tongue.

“The weather has turned and I had to see to it that the men you traveled here with were well on their way to their accommodations in town.”

Seungmin did not ask for an explanation but an omega must listen. “I understand, alpha,” he speaks through gritted teeth.

“Madam Seo has retired for the night and though I intend to satisfy the majority of your needs tonight, if there is anything in the house you desire, Changbin awaits your call outside the door.”

“I understand, alpha,” Seungmin repeats, keeping his gaze focused on the floor.

Minho crosses the room without much of a flourish and lowers himself onto the bedding directly in front of Seungmin. 

Perhaps the generous candlelight is far more forgiving on his features than the stark lantern light at dinner, because Seungmin regards Minho’s face as if for the first time all over again. His hair is still unstyled and drapes across his shoulders, but it is noticeably cleaner and more thoroughly combed this time around. His bright brown eyes are framed by thick lashes. His face is wide, round, soft and his lips, already, look red and plump and bitten.

Maybe, Seungmin thinks, he actually _is_ mildly attractive. But Minho is still small for an alpha. Smaller than Seungmin, in height and even in build. If his knot is as proportionally small… 

Well, perhaps that is a blessing in comparison to the inhuman monstrosity Hyunjin claims he must sit upon.

Minho leans close. Seungmin is so lost in thought that he does not catch on to Minho’s intentions until the last possible moment.

Seungmin turns his head. Minho’s lips press against his cheek as opposed to his mouth. “Seungmin,” he says in a pitifully small voice. “I cannot do this without you.”

“What nonsense is this,” the omega grunts out, “I am here.” 

Minho pushes close and aims for Seungmin’s mouth with his own. He nearly succeeds but Seungmin turns his face at just the right time and Minho’s pillow-soft lips collide with Seungmin’s jaw instead. “Seungmin.” Minho’s voice is full of bitterness.

Seungmin just as brusquely responds, “Alpha.”

They are motionless for a moment. It is so quiet in the room that Seungmin hears the low howl of the wind in the trees outside.

Almost in tandem, they renew their efforts. Seungmin pitches forward and slips his hand up the sleeve of Minho’s robe. Up and up he goes, tracing nimble fingers along Minho’s veins. In turn, Minho hovers over him, planting kisses down the shell of Seungmin’s ear and into the warm crook of his neck.

It takes them a few seconds, but they begin to move together. Chests press close. Heartbeats sync.

Seungmin grows bold. Or, rather, he grows bored. He unties the white sash about his waist and pulls the fabric of his bedclothes away from his body. “Do what you must.” Just like he has been taught, he slips his clothing off of his shoulders, off of his chest, and ignores the urge to shudder as his bare skin meets the chill air. He lowers himself down until his back is to the sheets and then he works more and more of the robe away from his body until he lies hard and exposed before his alpha, ready.

Minho watches him, but not with the lecherous, hungry eyes of an alpha mere moments away from taking and _devouring_. No. The cold, emptiness of the house even seems to lay claim to Minho’s gaze and Seungmin turns his head to stare at the warm light of the candles instead.

Moments pass but Minho’s only movement is the light, accidental brushing of his knuckles against the point of Seungmin’s elbow. Seungmin sighs. “Do you not know what to do?” It’s not entirely unheard of. Didn’t poor, selfless Minhyung have to teach his alpha _everything_? Including, but unfortunately not limited to, where to insert himself? Seungmin shifts his body so that he can look up at Minho. The alpha has barely undressed! He says, “Must I teach you?”

His questions are met with silence.

No matter. Seungmin has read enough texts and seen enough drawings to do all of the work himself if he must.

He reaches out, grasps Minho’s hand and pulls it close so that he may kiss the alpha’s wrist. Kiss his palm. Kiss the tip of his middle finger. Seungmin draws the digit into his mouth and licks at Minho’s knuckle. He slides more of it into his mouth. Until he hears Minho choke out a gasp. Until he feels the tip of Minho’s finger brush against the back of his throat. Easily, he slides the finger free from his mouth and does not mind the spit that drips from his lips. “If you liked that,” he exhales, staring up into Minho’s eyes, “think of what else my mouth can do.”

And Minho seems so excited by the prospect that he crawls right up to Seungmin’s side and bends in half to plant a kiss to Seungmin’s clavicle. To his throat. To his chin. 

Seungmin turns away a breath before Minho’s mouth connects with his own. 

Minho goes rigid. He pulls back. His furrowed eyebrows and irritated frown are clearly visible in the candlelight. Though Seungmin wishes the alpha would tie his hair up properly. 

“We will be here all night if you are this afraid,” Seungmin huffs.

“It is not me who is afraid,” Minho retorts.

“Afraid? I am the one attempting to teach you!” Frustrated, Seungmin sits up. With one swift movement, he pulls the sash from around Minho’s waist and tugs at the collar of his bedclothes. “Do not be ashamed of your lack of experience. I will tell you the steps. In the morning, you can claim you were the expert that taught me.” He yanks Minho’s robe from off of his shoulders, revealing a more tightly muscled torso than Seungmin anticipates.

“It is not my knowledge of sex that slows me,” Minho finally offers.

One more parting of fabric later and Seungmin finally reveals Minho’s flaccid length, framed by a thick patch of dark hair. Ahh, so they must start from the _very_ beginning. Seungmin leans forward to grip the thing by the shaft but Minho’s hand around his wrist stops him short.

They make eye contact.

“Then what slows you, alpha,” Seungmin ponders. 

Minho leans forward. Halts. Leans forward. Halts. Worry blazes in his eyes.

This is no obstacle, Seungmin tells himself. It is his heaven-ordained duty to conceive a child tonight. If it means he must watch Minho spill across the bedsheets and then scoop it up and force the seed up his ass with his fingers, he will.

With a steadying hand, he guides Minho backwards until he is kneeling and then attempts to take the alpha’s length in his mouth. 

Minho grabs him by the hair and pulls his face away from his crotch.

Seungmin glares. “Am I not to your preference? Should I have been born with a cunt?”

“You are fine,” Minho cuts in sharply. “Or, rather, I am fine with you. Are you fine with me?”

Seungmin breathes in Minho’s light, unobtrusive, spice-sweet scent. It’s a damned shame that Changbin’s fading scent still holds more presence. “Does it matter what I feel now that you’ve exchanged the money for the goods,” he responds. Minho should have known what he was getting during the legal preparations. Isn’t it weeks too late for regret? With his free hand, the one Minho has not seized, Seungmin grips the alpha’s length and attempts to work him up to full hardness.

Minho twists his body away from Seungmin’s palm.

Anger works its way into Seungmin’s chest. He knows he shouldn’t fight against an alpha’s decisions or wants, but he will fight for this! “Don’t you dare do this to me,” he says, voice low and dark. He makes another grab for Minho’s still-soft length but Minho swats his hand away. “Don’t you dare embarrass me.” Seungmin thought it would at least take a few more weeks before he was tossed aside to gather dust in the house’s forgotten halls! He snarls, “If you have some bitch back in town you give your knot to, I do not care. I do not care if you give your knot to anyone and everyone who asks. But you better give me your knot as well. So help me.”

“You misunderstand,” Minho says. He clamps a hand down on Seungmin’s shoulder to keep him from attempting to stand. “There is only you, my sweet.”

“Then what is the problem,” Seungmin demands. “Some medical issue I was not warned of?” He wraps his hands around Minho’s middle in an attempt to pull them closer together, in an attempt to sit astride his husband’s lap and take Minho’s knot as is his design, but--

“Let me kiss you,” says Minho. His face is serious, his hardened emotions easily readable in his eyes. “I want to connect with you, Seungmin. I want to have _all_ of who I am married to. Not just some small piece.”

Seungmin snorts. He pulls away so that he may stretch his legs wide, a knee pulled halfway to his chest, and show Minho the soft pink of him. “Is this not the piece you alphas desire most?”

Minho does not even look down. “That is not your heart.”

Seungmin is entirely baffled! He’s so stunned that he flops atop the sheets, limbs akimbo.

All this talk of connections. A union like this has no place for such things. If the alpha wanted to be _in love_ , he should have spent months writing Seungmin flowery letters begging for his heart, sending gifts of fine combs and perfume satchels and jade jewelry and embroidered clothing. He should have stopped by the Kim residence multiple times to plead his case to Seungmin’s parents, to prove he was far more eligible of a mate than Yongbok or Youngjae or Sungjin. If the alpha wanted love, he shouldn’t have waited until the scant hours before they should bed each other to meet him face to face. If the alpha wanted love, he shouldn’t have been broke, weak, indecisive and utterly spineless.

If he wanted love, Seungmin thought, he should have given Seungmin the wedding he’d dreamed of. He should have been the kind of alpha Seungmin had always desired. The kind of rich and famous and sexually overpowering alpha his omega friends were mated with.

Minho leans in to kiss him on the mouth yet again.

Seungmin gives him his cheek instead.

And with that, the night is over.

Minho collapses in defeat. He falls forward and presses his face into the smooth, hairless plane of Seungmin’s chest. His breath ghosts over Seungmin’s sensitive skin when he mumbles, “Perhaps we should only sleep tonight.”

And that is the absolute worst thing an omega can be told on their wedding night. 

That is just how things are. On a night like this, an alpha is supposed to _take_ and an omega is supposed to let them. 

To be left in the cold like this, discarded and untouched? Unwanted? 

Not even the news of infidelity would bring as much shame to a new household. 

Before he can stop it, a tear springs to the corner of Seungmin’s eye but he refuses to let it fall. He refuses to let it slide across his cheek and show his weakness! No. Not tonight. Not after everything he’s been through. Not after being handed off by his mother. Not after all of the preparation he sat through! Seungmin bites his bottom lip so harshly that he bleeds. That the bitter taste of iron floods his mouth. All to avoid screaming.

Minho knows nothing of his omega’s pain for he has already turned his back to Seungmin to begin blowing out the candles.


	4. A Parting Tune With A Thrice Repeated Refrain

Seungmin waits.

On a dreadful evening like this one, it is all that he has the power to do.

He lays beneath the bedsheets, feigning slumber, and  _ waits _ .

Waits for his heart to unclench from around his sadness and rage.

Waits for Minho to finish circling the room, to finish blowing out the candles, casting the cold room into colder darkness. Waits for Minho to draw back the covers to settle in next to him. Minho’s body is warm and the touch of his bare skin against Seungmin’s own does nothing but remind the omega of the wedding night they should have had. The hour they should have spent moving against each other, moving  _ with _ each other, until Seungmin was filled the way he should be.

Seungmin lies motionless as Minho attempts to wrap an arm around him, attempts to speak to him in warm, dulcet tones. (“I apologize if I scare you, my sweet.” “Perhaps we should have spoken to each other a bit more during dinner.” “I do not wish to harm you.” “My sweet… I will make it up to you if I have wronged you. I will climb mountains to see you smile at me. Simply tell me to do so.”)

Yet such whispered words feel hollow against Seungmin’s skin. They feel lifeless. Weightless. 

Empty.

Seungmin does not need the alpha’s profuse apologies. He needs the alpha’s knot. 

He needs to be the omega he was raised to be. Taught to be. Born to be.

Seungmin would rather die than remain an unwrapped gift in this lonely house.

So he waits.

He waits until Minho grows tired of murmuring platitudes alone in the dark and falls silent. 

He waits as Minho presses his face into the crook of Seungmin’s neck as he must stay close.

Seungmin waits as Minho’s soft hand rub circles over the smooth skin of his belly, a useless comfort when they both know that no seed takes root in the fertile soils there.

It feels like it takes hours, but Seungmin waits in the dark stillness of their shared room.

He waits.

And waits.

Waits for Minho’s breathing to slow with sleep. And to be safe, he waits longer still.

The night reaches its heaviest and darkest. That’s when Seungmin moves. Slowly, he peels Minho’s hand away from his empty belly and crawls out from beneath Minho’s arm, away from Minho’s body heat. He slips from beneath the bed sheets, careful to fold everything back up behind himself in case the chill draft of the room wakes Minho prematurely. 

He stands, reminded all over again of his near-nakedness as the winter chill claws at his inner thighs. Careful not to put too much of his weight down on his feet out of fear of sending the floorboards creaking, Seungmin moves about the room and dresses himself. He pulls on the layers and layers of a gray-green hanbok brought with him from home, finds a sturdy pair of leather boots to slip on over his feet, and sits a wide-brimmed straw hat atop his head. The material of the garb isn’t the finest, built more for comfort than for show, but Seungmin doesn’t mind. His time to brilliantly shine has come and gone without fanfare and now the only place left for him to stand is in the shadow that follows his alpha. He sighs wearily, slides the bedroom door back and steps out into the dimly-lit hall beyond.

Changbin, the poor fellow, nearly startles a scream from Seungmin’s throat before he realizes that the servant is asleep on his feet, back to the wall, arms folded across his front and chin lowered to his chest as he snores.

Seungmin creeps past him, moving slowly to navigate the house’s narrow, shadow-filled halls.

For the hundredth time, he wonders what this place would have been like in its full glory. He wonders how grand a life this family has to have lived at the peak of their wealth. Regardless of the home’s shabby state, there is no denying its size. There is no denying how many hands it took to build and how many servants and guests and clan members it could sleep. 

For the hundredth time, he wonders if he even has a future here.

He continues to creep through the halls of the estate before remembering that there are no other servants to slip past. No snoring family members to avoid disturbing. Madam Seo and her son are the only other residents here, thus all these halls and rooms are pitifully empty. Abandoning stealth, Seungmin more boldly and more quickly makes his exit.

He does not have the layout of this place memorized and the heavy scent of stale air and dust prevents him from following any scents so he follows the next best thing: the ever-present draft.

The frigid temperature of the air leads him down halls and through rooms until he finds the house’s main doors and steps out into the moonlit courtyard.

Already, he is shivering--cold down to his bones--but he must continue. He must leave now or else he will never know another day of joy.

Not wanting to waste precious moments with the heavy, solid wood of the locked front gate, Seungmin uses all his strength to haul himself up over the stone wall and, after much effort, he finds himself walking out in the wild. He resists the urge to look back at the place he is leaving and instead puts one foot in front of the other. His boots crunch across the snow. The underbrush snags at his sleeves. The wind bites at his ears even with his hat in place. But he finds the road and sticks to it. Down one hill and up another. Then down yet another hill, away from the mountains. There is a break in the trees and he peers through them to get a glimpse at what lies ahead, but the moonlight glinting off the flat, white blanket of snow removes any sense of distance.

The procession of betas and horses around his palanquin earlier in the evening had deceived him, he discovers, as the road is a lonelier thing than he’d have ever imagined. Empty and quiet, the worn dirt path cuts through a forest of bare-limbed trees, cuts through the foothills and dallies near a cliff, hugs the bend of a river. It feels like he is going somewhere yet it also feels as if he has gone nowhere. 

The dead silence of the air unnerves him. There isn’t even a rustle in the brush as even the wind has fallen still.

Is that the capital he sees on the horizon? Or are the twinkling lights merely stars?

Such uncertainty is going to drive him to madness.

“My omega brethren,” he intones, speaking aloud just to hear  _ something _ in the grave-like quiet of the night, “I may have been the last of us to get married but I, too, am now wed to a lovely alpha spouse. Have you not heard? Did you not receive my letters? You will include me in all of your parties from now on, I presume. Please, enjoy yourselves. It has been far too long since we’ve all gathered like this.” Seungmin smiles at himself as he imagines the lavish scene. All of the doll-like omega boys he grew up with are seated around a fine table, a grand meal laid out in numerous bowls before them. Seungmin mimes smoking a pipe and pretends that his warm breath meeting the cold air in a white fog is truly the stringent-smelling smoke of burning poppy. “Do not wait for me,” he tells his imagined guests. “Go on. Dine!” He waves an arm towards the hot meal.

And it hurts him to know that he will never be able to say such words with any seriousness. He can’t imagine the embarrassment that would come from inviting his friends to that shambling corpse of a house! But he smiles and continues his little speech. “How do you like my alpha’s house? Grand, isn’t it? He’s stunning to look upon and marvelously rich. Just like all of your alphas. I am just like you! I am no longer the only one who has not been chosen. I have not been overlooked.”

In reality, the dark trunks of the trees do not respond to him. The boulders do not move. The pebbles on the path hardly shift beneath his boots. The snow on the hills does not speak back. None of his friends are here. None of them can hear the things he says. The road underfoot simply becomes the road behind as he walks farther and farther away from that skeleton of a home.

“What was that, Haknyeon,” Seungmin asks the air. “Your wedding was a grand, all-day affair with an immaculate feast? Everyone talked about it for days? Famous performers and even a minister from the royal council was in attendance, you say?” He snorts. “I do not mean to brag but my wedding was far better! Absolutely no one of any remarkable social standing was present and there was just enough food to sate my hunger and not much else.” He raises a hand to his lips to hide his open-mouthed chuckle as he makes light of his own disastrous life.

Then he turns to his left. “What did you say, Sunwoo?” He takes another drag off of his imaginary pipe and exhales his breath into the frigid night air. “You’ve been tutored by palace scholars and your books of romantic poetry are read by gisaeng and court lady alike? How frivolous!” Another forced chuckle into the palm of his hand. “I used to entertain the neighborhood children with my gayageum playing and I won no prizes for my singing. Don’t you think I won our friendly bout of competition? No one cares that you have a child on the way!” He laughs away his growing irritation as his imaginary banquet continues.

“And Minhyung… How much land do you now own? How many houses? How many servants did you say your famous alpha and his family employ? Over fifty? Over one hundred across all properties? What a crass display. My alpha is famous as well. I’m sure you’ve heard of him. He’s so rich that I don't even know what he does for a living. Do you see how large of an estate I live in now? It covers quite some ground. And we only employ  _ two _ servants! A hook-nosed old woman and her dreadfully boring son she clearly adopted as there is no way she birthed him at such an age.”

He gasps and turns to his right, pretending to playfully strike the shoulder of his closest friend and confidant. “Jisung! This is a civilized dinner! No one asked you to regale us with the debauched bedroom tales of you and your alpha.” Yet his wide grin and twinkling eyes makes it obvious that such stories are welcomed. Even encouraged. “I have no intentions of lessening the impact of your wild tales but my sex life is better than yours.  _ My _ alpha doesn’t even  _ touch _ me! I am convinced he has an entire harem of omegas that he’d much rather bed. Does that not make me the winner?”

What had started as a joke to lighten his mood and fight away the quiet ends up unearthing his frustrations, digging them up from the roots, and it’s not until he has to blink away his half-blurred vision and wipe the back of his hand across his eyes that he accepts the fact that he is crying even though he does not wish to.

Seungmin sniffles hard and forces himself not to sob. He holds his voice steady and keeps his shoulders back and spine straight. An omega always maintains their poise in front of guests! He looks across the imaginary table at the pretty little omega who has always been his fiercest rival. “Hyunjin. You say your virile alpha has a cock so large you cannot fit a hand around it? Even when his knot has yet to inflate? Well,  _ my _ alpha doesn’t even get hard when he’s in bed with me. Even when I have my hand around it, he remains soft like the very sight of me disgusts him.” He looks around at the table, at all of his distinguished guests, and says, “Hasn’t my life turned out just as good, if not better, than all of yours?” And he is so relieved that his voice does not crack. That he can maintain the facade right until the end. “Am I not just as happy and just as worthy to be envied as all of you?”

But who is he attempting to fool?

There is nothing wonderful about his marriage which is why he is doing his best to leave it.

He will go back home and look his alpha mother in the eye and watch her face crumple with shame and disappointment and horror as he tells her what he’s done. As he tells her what he’s run away from.

Minho will wake in the morning, see that the other side of the bed is empty, and he will simply look for yet another spouse since Seungmin isn’t even the first!

He has never been so tired in his entire life.

The exhaustion is like an iron weight has been shackled about his ankles, limiting his movements and making every step forward painful and slow.

Seungmin spots a tree stump near the side of the road and he sits down on the cold, hard earth to rest his back against it. He is winded from his walk, his legs are sore and burn from the strain, and the lights of the capital on the horizon seem no closer now than they did when his journey began. 

He must not have traveled half as far as he’s believed and his own idiocy makes him drily, humorlessly laugh.

He left in such a rush, feeling so sure of himself, so confident, but has he even made it halfway? He is starving and thirsty and sleepy and so cold that the feeling has left his fingers and toes. 

Seungmin shuts his eyes and lets his mind wander. He will rest for just a moment, he tells himself. And then he will complete his journey. He will keep going.

But even a road as rural as this isn’t safe from armed bandits, he understands.

Now that his pulse has stopped hammering in his ears, Seungmin clearly hears the sound of heavy footsteps in the snow behind him, quickly approaching. Loud and obvious. He is such weak, foolish prey that his attacker does not even need to be particularly wily to catch him unaware.

Yet he can’t even bring himself to feel afraid.

This is how the family curse will take him! He wasn’t even the one to make the decision to get married--and was even in the process of running away from it--yet, like his brothers and sisters, he must now be killed. He will follow his siblings to the grave without knowing the happiness of wedded life. It is his fate. It is the destiny the heavens have written for him and his family and he readily accepts it. He welcomes such an end with widespread arms.

Seungmin does not even open his eyes as he listens to his assailant come up behind him. “I have no food or coin,” he warns, his voice hoarse and dry, “but if you must waste your time searching my person, I will not resist.”

The footsteps stop right behind him, but the bandit does not move to attack him. Not yet.

“If you must kill me, do it quickly,” he tells the bandit. “Please… Show me mercy. Do not tell me when death comes.” And he sits up a little straighter, exposes his neck, ready and waiting for the blade that will surely cleave off his head.

The bandit draws close, kneels in the snow behind him and wraps an arm around Seungmin’s shoulders. Do they intend to cleanly snap his neck instead? Or will they choke him slowly and make him suffer?

Seungmin does not move or shake or scream.

He waits.

Because that is all he has the power to do.

He waits for the pain. Waits for death.

But… 

The bandit pushes even closer against him, their chest to his back, and wraps their other arm around the omega’s neck.

Seungmin becomes swamped in their heat, drenched in their smell, and the  _ familiarity _ of it all cuts him open more grievously than any sword.

“Do you hate me so much,” Minho asks against the shell of his ear, “that you would rather freeze to death than kiss me?”

And it’s not until such words are spoken aloud that Seungmin properly acknowledges just how weak he is out here in the frigid wild. Just how slow and muddied his thoughts have become. How tight his ribs feel around his lungs. How stiff and numb and  _ unresponsive _ his body has become beneath the weight of all of this cold. The ache in his bones lets him know that he’s been sitting here for far longer than he could have guessed.

“I have looked all over these woods for you,” Minho continues, “and I am so glad that I have found you, my sweet.”

Seungmin opens his eyes and turns his head. Minho looks down at him with an oddly fond smile. The silver moonlight catches on his skin, in his eyes, and the orange glow of a lantern he must have brought with him from the estate casts warm and flickering shadows across his face. This is no delusion, Seungmin knows, because if he was hallucinating, the only thing Minho would do is drive a dagger through his heart. The Minho he sees is real and warm and tender while the snow remains cold and hard beneath him. Yet even so close to death, Seungmin cannot be anything but himself. Through chattering teeth, he commands, “Do not call me such a foul, wretched thing, alpha.”

Minho’s eyes go wide in surprise. His smile falters but his arms around Seungmin’s body remain tight and warm. “Whatever do you mean, my--” He pauses, catching his own words in his throat.

Seungmin turns his head and stares into the black shadows of the forest around them. “Nothing about me is sweet. I will not have you lie to my face.”

Minho sags against him, presses his forehead to Seungmin’s temple. He exhales in what just may be frustration and his breath is hot against Seungmin’s neck. “Would you rather I be openly hostile towards you instead?”

“Those would be your true colors, so yes, alpha.”

It’s just a small amount, but Minho’s warmth slowly seeps into Seungmin’s bones and pulls him safely away from the brink. Makes his shivering stop.

“Is that all you think of me,” Minho questions. “Do you only see me as some violent, monstrous man?”

“You have done little to change my opinion about you.”

“Have I harmed you in some way? What have I done to you that makes you resent me so?”

Seungmin can list the ways. Minho robbed him of the wedding of his dreams. Robbed him of the married life his friends found so much life and joy and peace in. Snatched away his goals of being wealthy and beautiful and famous and adored like all of his omega friends who have already married alphas. Minho ruined all of those fairytale stories about falling in love and being together forever and it is almost like a jester’s play how ignorant Minho is to the destruction he has wreaked on Seungmin’s life. He says, “You have abandoned me.”

“Is it not you who has abandoned me?” Minho loosens his hold on Seungmin. Not to let go of him but to turn him around in his arms and fold Seungmin close to his body so that the two of them may face each other. He grabs one of Seungmin’s hands in his own and massages the numbness from his fingers. “Is it not you who slipped away in the middle of the night and nearly succumbed to the cold in the process?”

Seungmin does not wish to look him in the eye but no matter which way he turns his head, Minho tilts his face as well so that they are forced to speak directly to each other. Boldly, Seungmin meets his gaze. “I would not have run if you did not make me do so.”

Minho frowns. Seungmin spots a flicker of anger in his eyes. But Minho fights back such a harmful emotion. “I have done nothing to make you run.”

“You are an alpha. Of course you would have no idea how cruel you have been to me.”

Minho’s expression hardens. His eyes narrow. “I have extended every pleasantry. I have tried hard to hold you close and treasure you.Have we not done everything to make your time here comfortable and safe? How can any of my actions tonight be cruel?”

Seungmin scoffs. That is the problem with alphas! So unused to being in the wrong. So unfamiliar with the darkness of their own shadows. “You have discarded me.”

Minho raises his voice. “When?” 

The syllable echoes between the trees and rings in Seungmin’s ears but he does not flinch. “In our marriage bed. You cast me aside like some unwanted toy yet act surprised when I flee.”

Confusion settles across Minho’s face. He crinkles his nose and furrows his eyebrows. He grips both of Seungmin’s hands and holds them tight, almost to the point of inflicting pain. “You’ve done all of this because I will not knot you?”

“Yes,” Seungmin answers curtly. “Are you so ignorant to tradition that you do not know what it is that you should do on our wedding night?”

And even though it had been Minho who insisted on looking at each other’s faces during this tense, stressful conversation, he is the first to break eye contact and lower his gaze. “I am not ignorant.”

Sufficiently warm, Seungmin pries his hands free of Minho’s harsh grip and stands. His blood tingles in his feet and hands painfully but at least he is no longer numb. “Of course you aren’t. You’ve been married several times before.” And Minho not refuting such a claim only makes it true. Seungmin adds, “I’m just another toy you’ve grown bored with and thrown aside.”

At last, Minho looks up at him. His mouth is set in a firm line and his wet eyes reflect the lantern light as if he carries stars in his irises. “There has only been one before you, Seungmin, and I let him go because he could not handle a future with me.”

And who could, Seungmin wonders. Who could put up with a life in an empty house with an empty belly? 

“Tell me what I should do to please you,” Minho states. He stands to his feet and closes the distance between them. “I will listen to your every instruction.”

“Knot me,” Seungmin tells him.

And although it is dark in the woods, Seungmin sees the bright red of embarrassment flush across Minho’s pale cheeks. “I do not want to do that if you cannot love me.”

“How absurd,” Seungmin snaps back. He turns away from his alpha, from his husband, and glares into the depths of the woods. How far will Minho let him get if he decides to run? “Why else would you buy me if not to knot me whenever you damn well please?”

Minho sputters, “I did not buy--” But he stops himself short, all too aware that he truly  _ did _ pay the Kim family an undisclosed sum for Seungmin’s hand in marriage. “Why are you so against me, Seungmin? I want you to be more to me than just some warm hole I fill. Is that not a good thing?”

Yet Seungmin could care less about love. He could care less about romance and sweet nothings and overly-saccharine pet names. Minho gave all of that up when he brought Seungmin all the way out here to this overgrown, dust-filled hovel. Minho gave all of that up when he made Seungmin ashamed to even be married. Seungmin says, “You should have been Sungjin. You should have been Youngjae.”

And if Minho takes offense, he does not show it on his face. He stoops down and grunts lightly to heft the weight of the lantern. “Perhaps it is a good thing that you treat a spoiled alpha like me in such a way. I have much to learn about the world through you.” He approaches Seungmin. Slowly. As if fearful that moving too quickly will make Seungmin flinch away from him. “And perhaps it is a good thing that you so openly detest me.”

Seungmin gives him the briefest glance. “And why is that?”

Minho grabs hold of Seungmin’s hand. Seungmin lets him. “Because if you do fall in love with me, I know you mean it. It will be genuine. Not the forced, fake affection my previous spouse gave me.”

Seungmin rolls his eyes. There he goes. Talking about love again. Seungmin does not believe in such fallacies anymore. “How do you intend to sway me?”

Minho tugs on his hand and steers him up the path, back towards the hollow walls of the estate. “The night is still young,” he says. “There are many hours yet before dawn so it is still our wedding night.” He turns his head to look at Seungmin who slowly shifts to meet his gaze. Minho announces, stone-faced, “since you so desperately need my knot, I will give it to you.” 


End file.
